This invention relates to a credit card, and particularly to one which has high security.
Credit cards have often been subject to fraud. One manner of committing the fraud is to fabricate fake credit cards. A technique for foiling this is to make manufacture of credit cards more difficult. In recent years credit cards have been made to include holograms, which require specialized equipment difficult for unscrupulous characters to obtain.
However a person wishing to commit the fraud can steal already prepared cards, which have as yet not been embossed with the user's name and credit card number. Therefore the possibility of fraud still exists. Another problem involving fraudulant use of credit cards is theft of a legitimate credit card.
The present invention is directed to an unique credit card which can be registered to the holder and is virtually as unique as a finger print. Thus the possession of a stolen card or one already registered to the holder can be determined and proven to be the property of another person.
In accordance with the present invention a credit card is comprised of a plastic base layer which contains one or more distinctive gems retained thereto. Since, for example, no two gems such as diamonds are alike, the gems can be recorded as unique to one credit card holder. The unique light scatter pattern or characteristic of the gem can be determined, which pattern or characteristic can be recorded corresponding to the name of a credit card holder. The possibility of fraud is thus substantially reduced.
The distinctiveness of each gem can be recorded separately from the card by the credit card company, and then matched with a particular card when it is issued, the correspondence being stored in a database. Security of the card thus stems from the existance of the gem card holder database retained by the credit card company. Should blank cards be stolen, they will not contain the gems and the card would be clearly fraudulent. Even embossing the card with a fake name and number would not result in a legitimate card, absent the distinctive gem or gems.
Further, even if the person stealing the blank card embosses the card with a name and number which would be recognizable by the credit card company, and separately stole and inserted gems into the card, it would be impossible for the person making up the fraudulant card to match the gems to the database. The fraudulency of the card can thus be determined by reading the light scatter pattern or characteristic of the card and comparing it with the database listing.